Process
by Wyz.the.Great
Summary: First it was boredom, then some success. Even with her brilliance, Shiho knew that lab work was a process. She just didn't know how much things would change over the course of that process. (oneshot; written for Poirot Cafe Contest #39: Brilliant)


**A/N: Blah... Sometimes, I fully know what I'm doing when I write a story, and other times, it's all just a blur. This was one of those times where it was just a blur, but I hope you guys enjoy-please read and review (^_^)**

 **Words: 1,518**

* * *

Routine—everything was routine.

Go to work. Get the lab set up. Look over the progress of the cell cultures…

Shiho released a sigh.

What part of this was revolutionary? What part of this was worth a codename?

Supposedly, she was a genius. She didn't believe it, wouldn't believe it. At least, not until she saw progress.

She glanced at the results from the cell counter, and jotted them down, barely repressing another sigh.

One more trial.

One more failure.

The peppy Yoko Okino song, softly playing through her earbuds, contrasted her mood like a cloudless sky on the day of a funeral.

With a huff, she turned away, going back to the biosafety cabinet, back to her cell culture plates.

The new batch of plates, ready for the cells to be transferred, were already labeled.

MDA-MB-231, passage 19, APTX trial 1412.

She didn't notice the woman peering in the lab, with long, straw-colored hair and vermilion painted lips turned down with a frown.

oOo

She didn't want to look, but she couldn't turn away. The mouse in the metal cage, silent, cold, still, held her attention through a combination of shock and morbid curiosity.

Death wasn't intentional, but it was better than having nothing to work with She was finally getting some progress, finally getting closer to the point where her parents had stopped their research… so why did she not want to celebrate? Why did she feel empty?

She mentally shook her head at the thought.

It was just a lack of satisfaction. That had to be it. Maybe she'd feel more like celebrating if she made further progress.

She didn't want to think about why her parents stopped. They had volumes of notes, trials, results, articles… So much had been invested, so much had been lost.

A flash of movement beyond the doorway to her left was what ultimately drew her eyes away from the small corpse.

A woman with straw-colored hair and, currently, blood-red lips leaned against the wall just across the hall. Even with minimal make-up, and basic clothes, she still gave off the air of a celebrity.

Shiho looked on in cold indifference.

"Vermouth."

The woman's face twisted into a sneer.

"Sherry."

Shiho sighed and turned to fully face her.

"What business do you have with me?"

"Nothing. I'm just observing the progress of your little experiment."

There was something more that flickered across Vermouth's face. Shiho could have sworn it was disgust.

Perhaps Vermouth was planning on sabotage…

"Well I have to get back to my work…"

She turned away, grabbing her notebook to jot down some observations. If she wanted those test results back, she needed to get those tissue samples in sometime within the next hour or so.

The decrescendo of clacking heels on linoleum was enough for her to know that Vermouth had left.

oOo

Shinichi Kudo.

That was the name of her first victim. The first person who was dead because of her _poison_.

It wasn't supposed to be a poison—trial 4869 was just a failed prototype. Apparently, the Black Organization didn't care, despite her protests.

She looked him up when she first got the report. Just had his 16th birthday, went to a local high school… He was normal except for being a renown high school detective. Apparently he solved a murder at an amusement park the same day he was poisoned. It was the same amusement park where Gin and Vodka were conducting business.

She wasn't a detective, but she knew how to connect the dots.

Though… his death wasn't confirmed. Gin and Vodka had to leave because of the police being nearby. They couldn't even come back to check the crime scene. There wasn't any news about him being found dead, but there wasn't anything concerning his whereabouts since the incident either. Despite being so connected to the police department, no one filed a missing person report.

If he was laying low, though, there would be some sort of thing to trace. The lack of evidence pointed more toward him simply vanishing overnight.

It didn't make sense, but she wasn't going to say anything.

He was probably dead anyway, just like the mice who were test subjects before him.

She readjusted her position on the office chair making sure to not disturb the work she was doing on the lab bench. The ear bud in her ear, softly playing one of Yoko Okino's newest songs, threatened to fall out at the movement.

APTX Trial 4870.

That was what she was currently working on. Trial 4869 was in the past. All she needed to do was focus on the second half of what she was trying to accomplish—cell-regeneration.

And soon, if the discussion with her sister was of any indication, she would be free from the shackles of the Organization.

All she needed to do was carry on.

oOo

She looked at the different camera feeds, each one dedicated to another test subject, without really seeing them.

Did this even matter? Did her _life_ even matter?

She knew her sister was just a low-ranking member of the organization, but the unspoken agreement was that the Miyano siblings were a package deal.

They couldn't have Shiho if they didn't have Akemi too.

Did her sister's murder, at Gin's hands, no less, mean that she became disposable?

Shiho frowned, bitting her lip. She didn't like the implications.

But she couldn't think about that, couldn't think about her sister. If her sister's death meant anything, it was that she wasn't safe. She would have to morn later.

Just as she was about to click out of the camera feeds, she noticed movement.

Her eyebrows furrowed in confusion.

Moving around one of the cages, acting like nothing happened, was one of her lab mice.

Was the APTX 4869 not administered? It was the last trial for that sample that she was going to conduct, so it would have been easy to forget… But a quick comparison between the mouse and the objects around the cage showed that there had been a change.

The mouse shrunk.

Her eyes widened.

Did… did the mouse de-age? She needed tissue samples, blood tests…

She needed to go back to her notes on this trial, if the mouse actually did de-age. Perhaps a genome comparison as well, to see what was different about this mouse in comparison to the others.

But her sister was gone… Did any of this matter anymore?

A vibration in her pocket snapped her out of her reverie.

Her hand slipped into one of the pockets in her lab coat, and pulled out her phone, a text alert already showing on the screen.

"Be at the entrance in 5. Presence requested for searching Kudo residence."

She scowled, closing out the camera feed and grabbing an APTX 4869 pill on her way out.

oOo

She glanced at the computer screen with a slight smile.

The simulations seemed to run alright, and double-checks, triple-checks, quadruple-checks revealed that the possibility of a miscalculation was very unlikely. Perhaps this time she could undo the damage she had done, rectify the lives that went off-course.

All she needed to do was try things out on a test subject.

Her smile faltered.

Shinichi Kudo didn't deserve to be made into another test subject… but with being the only APTX survivor besides herself, her options were limited. Being the person he was, he probably would jump at the chance of taking an experimental antidote anyway.

She thought back to what had happened at the hospital, with Ran volunteering to donate blood. Ran _knew_. There was no way that she didn't, with how sure she was when she claimed that she shared the same blood type as Conan Edogawa—something she shouldn't have known, since "Conan's" blood type had never been tested. If Ran was to be kept in the dark, there was no other way but to make Shinichi a test subject once more.

She glanced behind her, to the work bench where she kept the antidote sample.

It seemed innocent enough, encapsulated in a little red and white pill, though she knew the dangers contained within it's chemistry.

The body's immune system needed to be compromised if there was any chance for success, which would have been fine, but the process that the body would go through… Human bodies weren't made to age 10 years in the span of just minutes. If the intense stress didn't kill the person who took it, then theoretically, everything else would be fine.

The "if" was what concerned her the most.

She bit her lip.

She needed a test subject, at this point, though. If she were to progress any further. Testing tissue samples could only get her so far.

With a sigh, she got up, grabbing a fake gun, and hiding it within a light jacket.

She needed to visit Kudo.

As she left the lab, she looked back to the antidote sample.

Hopefully, it would work. Hopefully, it could fix the lives her project had ruined.


End file.
